Intellectual Rigor

Intellectual rigor in the context of New Roads is exemplified through three key patterns of learning that each student hones: habits of mind, habits of character, and tools for effective participation. We believe that cultivating an intellectual habitat that balances structure and freedom helps young people develop these positive habits. Optimal intellectual growth and development occurs in the interchanging sweet spot between direct instruction and discovery learning. Each human being comes endowed with a wealth of curiosity and intrinsic motivation that emerges with encouragement and the right supportive environment for it to flourish.

Habits of Mind

New Roads encourages students to:
  • Use innate curiosity, creativity and imagination to pursue an inquiry and organize and synthesize appropriately complex understandings
  • Be willing to take creative, intellectual, and aesthetic risks with both familiar and new information in all areas of study
  • Evaluate evidence for its relevance to an inquiry and formulate justifiable solutions
  • Appropriately question the authority of history as well as use it to understand the present
  • Master facts/skills/competencies so they can apply them to problem solving in a variety of learning contexts


Habits of Character

New Roads prepares students to:
  • Become conscientious decision-makers who consider the well-being of the community with respect to equity, social justice and ecological balance
  • Listen deeply, respond with compassion and attempt to resolve conflict through discourse and cooperation
  • Understand and overcome personal biases and prejudices with respect to race, ethnicity, gender and other human differences, and demonstrate open-minded appreciation for other cultures and perspectives
  • Act with courage and respect in the face of conflict and injustice


Tools for Effective Participation

New Roads provides students with the tools to:
  • Read, write, speak and communicate effectively
  • Demonstrate scientific and mathematical literacy
  • Understand and express social, political, economic, moral and ecological awareness
  • Understand how the arts affect social and cultural environments
  • Participate and cooperate in athletics and the arts
  • Solve problems non-violently
  • Respect the ideas and learning styles of others
New Roads School is a college preparatory K-12 private independent school in Santa Monica, CA, serving over 514 school age children from the greater Los Angeles area. New Roads School provides an inspired educational program from which an authentically diverse student population, mirroring the rich diversity of Los Angeles, develops a personal dedication to learning, a respect for independent thinking, and an expanding curiosity about the world and its people.
NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATORY POLICY AS TO STUDENTS New Roads School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.